The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (33001300 BCE; mature period 26001900 BCE)

that was located in the northwestern region[1] of the Indian Subcontinent,[2][3] consisting of what is now mainly modernday Pakistan and northwest India. Flourishing around the Indus River basin, the civilization[n 1] primarily centered along the Indus and the Punjab region, extending into the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley[7] and the Ganges-Yamuna Doab.[8][9] Geographically, the civilization was spread over an area of some 1,260,000 km, making it the largest ancient civilization in the world. There is an Indus Valley site on the Oxus river at Shortugai[10] and extending towards Alamgirpur on the Hindon river located only 28 km from Delhi, India.

The mature phase of this civilization is known as the Harappan Civilization, as the first of its cities to be unearthed was the one at Harappa, excavated in the 1920s in what was at the time the Punjab province of British India (now in Pakistan).[11] Excavation of Harappan sites have been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999.[12] To date, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar-Hakra river and its tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centers of Harappa, Lothal, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Kalibanga, and Rakhigarhi. The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization or the Indus-Sarasvati civilization.[13] The appellation Indus-Sarasvati is based on the possible identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with the Sarasvati River of the Nadistuti sukta in the Rig Veda, but this usage is disputed on linguistic and geographical grounds. The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is unknown, a plausible relation would be to Proto-Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian.[14]

Arts and crafts

The "dancing girl of Mohenjo Daro." Chanhudaro. Fragment of Large Deep Vessel, circa 2500 B.C.E. Red pottery with red and black slip-painted decoration, 4 15/16 x 6 1/8 in. (12.5 x 15.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites. A number of gold, terra-cotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some dance form. Also, these terra-cotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. The animal depicted on a majority of seals at sites of the mature period has not been clearly identified. Part bull, part zebra, with a

majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims that the image has religious or cultic significance, but the prevalence of the image raises the question of whether or not the animals in images of the IVC are religious symbols.[43] Sir John Marshall is known to have reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze statuette of a slender-limbed dancing girl in Mohenjo-daro: When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture. Modeling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged. Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks of the Indus.